majestic

Is that your takeaway here, we can't expect Star Wars movies to be good because they're meant to be silly entertainment and we're not supposed to expect Star Trek to be intelligent because it's... wait, what? I'm sorry, I normally ignore you when you're pulling off a Hurlshot-defense of something, but:

I JUST WATCHED THAT GO READ MY POST MY BRAIN IS GONE GOODBYE DEAR THREAD... Sorry for the caps. Not. Here's a helpful link, please like and subscribe and hit that bell so I did not spend an hour typing that for nothing. Thanks! edit: So it's going to be Thursdays of Hell from here on out, huh? A new episode of Komi Can't Communicate and Star Trek: Discovery on the same day. Sigh.

Star Dreck: Venal Disease, Season 4, episode one. Opens with a very helpful reminder of how absolutely balls to the walls dumb the premise of last season was. 700 years in the future, the Federation was unable to find reliable alternatives to the warp drive that have been in use in various "25 years into the future" episodes throughout the entire run of the franchise, several alternatives to warp drives that were already pretty much reliable in the older shows, but hey, never mind. Been there, done that. IN AN INSTANT, THE BURN FLASHED ACROSS ALL KNOWN SPACE. Sure Michael. It's 700 years into the future. If you want the Federation to have fallen, then just do that. So many possibilities. Renewed tensions with the Klingons. A second war with the Dominion. A costly Borg invasion. Internal decay. Out of all the options in the galaxy to reach the point where they wanted to be, the writers sat in their writing room and came up with the dumbest excuse of a plot premise in the history of ever, and that includes Jar Jar Binks putting forth a motion that eventually changed the Republic into the Galactic Empire. Hell, Jar Jar is a better character than any of the people on this ship, and that's... ... Okay. *steps down from the soapbox* I'm 36 SECONDS into the episode at this point. 36 SECONDS. Hell. 50 seconds in: The reminder that THE BURN was caused by the scream of a uhm, whatshisface race name (I know it's Kelpien) child. I wonder if I'll get through the "Last season on Star Dreck: Worse than AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIDSSSSSSSSS" without suffering a stroke. NUMB ARM. NUMB ARM NARM NARM NARMM NARM NARM NARM. Oh, right, that numb nut Booker is still around too. Great to see Cyborg Whatsherface and the other people of the bridge crew that didn't get names until a couple of episodes back because why bother with worldbuilding. Spoilers from here on out, don't tell me I didn't warn ya. Can someone put me out of my misery please?

Komi can’t communicate new episode thingy: Hououin Kyoma has a guest role, aside from that it was not nearly as terribad as the last one. Either my brain suffered severe damage last time or this was a better episode than the last three.

Yes, I did. Spoilered mostly for brevity's sake: I'll never know for sure, but I was also talking about the rewatch, more or less. Even knowing that it'll continue, the scenes weren't as hard hitting as the mini-montage of them waving happily at Usagi (or, well, the viewer) shortly afterwards. Indeed, technically speaking I still have Steven Universe: The Kaiju Stories open. Fun fact: Binging three seasons in almost as many days seems to have broken my OCD. I'm still pretty burned out with poor Steven - the problem is that's barely viable for other shows. Not only was Steven Universe more than good enough to be binged, it was also much easier with the 11 minutes episode setup, and he fact that we were stuck in a very strict lockdown at the time. I think Toei doesn't have the material any more. This isn't a case of George Lucas pretending to have artistic integrity when he says he does not want to create a HD version of the original cinematic Star Wars releases. They'd release proper Blu Rays if they could, I mean, they made Crystal for two bucks and a chewing gum paid to the artists to rake in cash. You might be more lenient than I was, wich all in all is pretty weird when you really think about it. I'm far more critical of certian episodes of CCS than you were (like that ice skating episode, or the strawberry adventure). Very minor Nanoha update:

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Episode 17: Whee, Cargo gets to show off her summoning power that's been teased and hinted at in bits and pieces in the earlier episodes, Subaru and Erio get a neat reminder why there's no I in team, and the Doctor's cyborg squad pretty much fulfilled all its objectives (except taking Subaru as a prisoner). The Doctor cackles and laughs like a madman, saying he's a lover of life and philantropist at heart, which would ring hollow had his team not gone out of the way to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. He also makes a very helpful transmission offering his technology, for a price. I guess as far as sales pitches go, making the Space Cops and their rapid response team look like a bunch of incompetend amateurs ain't half bad. Potential partners and buyers don't need to know that the deck was stacked against them, right? At any way, the expected low point didn't come in the fight right at the middle, but roughly two thirds through the season, and it's a lot lower than expected. Sheesh. Also curious how they'll write themselves out of this mess without going for a major asspull. The combat cyborgs are being adapted and changed after every encounter, and this time it was rather evenly matched already. Next time... edit: The combat cyborgs all look a bit like they could come out of a Mega Man game. edit 2: Oi, I kept thinking I know the Doctor's voice from somewhere, it's the same voice actor that voice Fuma in the X movie. edit 3: Next episode has the cleanup, some nice moments between the characters (even the "bad" guys, who are currently hard at work setting up some heel/face turns for the endgame). The Arthra, the Space Cop battle cruiser that appeared in the first two seasons is repurposed as mobile headquarter for Riot Force 6, it was close to being decomissioned and has been mothballed for a while now.

That's still running and all that...

There's a helicopter in StrikerS they're often flying around with. It's the only thing on the show that is CGI, and I have no idea why*. It looks terrible and out of place, like late 90ies made for TV grade. It seems such a silly thing, but I wish this would look better. Not just the helicopter, but everything else. It's not bad, it's just not... nearly as good as it could be, and arguably perhaps even deserves in this season. Nanoha talks to the others about trying to find a family that will take Vivio in and where Vivio also would like to stay, and her team is basically: "Nah, not going to happen." She's already way too attached to Nanoha-mama and Fate-mama, but apparently Nanoha can't see the trees for the forest, or however that saying goes. The scenes with Vivio continue to be absolutely heartwarming. edit: Oh boy, that attack on the Space Cop HQ was pretty successful. Episode gets bonus points for making decent use of the character's magical enhanced cyborg abilities. Girl who can walk through solid matter drops through the ceiling and takes out the entire defense command with a few well placed grenades. Meanwhile all the defensive magic turns out ot be useless with the entire area blanketed in an anti-magic field. One of the enemies packs the same power fist as Subaru and the newbie gang gets cornered by a swarm of magic missiles that look suspiciously like Nanoha's abilities. Seems like the good Doctor had access to a whole lot of material to experiment with. Lt. General Whathisface meanwhile simply keeps the conference going in the middle of the attack. Gee. Nothing to see here, nothing at all. He's trying to gather support and more funding for his non-magical defense project. Such a coincidence. I wonder if that thing will save them next episode. *I suspect the animated rotor blades would have been out of scope for the budget or the time they had. Because every time the helicopter shows up grounded it's just drawn normally like everything else is.

It's not the episode that got me the most, to be honest, there are others (Meiling's send-off for instance). I also agree that the episode with Dream was fantastic. Emotional montages, I get that. SU's was pretty good, but I think I really need to go back and watch at least parts of season one again now that I've seen the whole series. I have a feeling a few of these episodes would work, perhaps not better, but differently, or would be enhanced by knowing (and loving) the characters already. Speaking of montages (Sailor Moon "spoiler", I guess): The episode simply wins by doing everything right while at the same time being emotionally powerful enough to cause a tear or two, besides it's bittersweet instead of just sad. One thing ends, the other clearly begins (in earnest this time). Oh, and by being really surprising. Never thought she'd go and do that (I know I'm repeating myself ). What I don't understand is how nothing else from Ms. Ohkawa came close to that. Although, caveat, I still have to try Magic Knight Rayearth. More Sakura talk:

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Episode 15. Lt. General Gaiz stands between three monitors talking to him in distorted voices about how they should proceed now that they're under investigation by the Main Office and their Navy-backed response unit. For a while now I haven't been able to shake the feeling of watching a Neon Genesis Magical Girl when it comes to the military setup and secret response force and fighting dangerous enemies prophesied to bring about the end of the world, but that just seals the deal, right? This isn't a coincidence, but really deliberate. That's part two of the comparison I mentioned that I could make that would raise undue expectations. At least now I can see that nagging feeling directly on screen.

Me neither.

Oh noes. It usually does, but apparently being logged in on both my phone and computer is a bit messy. I'll go read up now, I've been dying to post something about #66 ever since I watched it.

Sakura talk:

Sakura listening in on that conversation was hard… to watch. What did you think about her, uhm, decision at the end there?

Whoever designed the Android user “experience” needs to be used as proof of concept for the viability of bamboo torture. That is all. edit: Yikes, calmed down a little. My father bought a new phone, and it's... yeah. Really. Say what you will of Apple and their insane policies, switching from one device to the next is seamless, easy and just works. Meanwhile on Crapdroid...

Well, they can't all be Kars...

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Man, epsiode 14 is great.

I was pretty sure I blamed it on the uploaded video in my post at some point, but then rewrote the sentence - you're right, there are decent recordings on YouTube, this one isn't. Not sure, but the video quality of the video suggests that a lot of dynamic was probably lost in the encoding (or ripping) from whatever source this is.

Well, I did ask for it. Video and audio quality on YouTube is... often pretty bad, but in this case it's really, really bad. Needless to say I like most of Yuki Kajiura's work. It's strange how that sometimes works, and it's not just soundtracks for me, but artists in general - but not always. I posted about this a while ago. When Theatre of Tragedy made songs after a genre shift from gothic metal to electro/synth pop, I really hated the new sound. I still do. Ugh. When Weird Al makes a rap parody like White and Nerdy, I find myself not just laughing at the lyrics or the music video, but also really liking the sound... and to top it off, I hated everything of Chamillionaire I was subjected to. When Trent Reznor makes music like this: There's no reason why, but I like this cacophony of... whatever it is. Makes me a hypocrite too when I give Nine Inch Nails the benefit of the doubt over any other artist when they make similar music, and at the same time complain that "White on White" has no intrinsic artistic value just because it's from a well known painter. Guess I have to live with that.

Suddenly had to think of this while reading your comment. Surprise me and like this : This is most likely the best thing to come from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle... Extremely impressive coordination by the background singers though. Extremely well synchronized and singing on four separate scales to give it an hefty amount of harmonic depth for just four of them. True, but it's even worse for (semi-)canon lesbian pairings, because the posts always go like: "They're lesbians and sleeping with each other!" Sure guys, that's what people in a healthy relationship do, usually. The fact that you need to point that out just reveals your masturbatory fantasies. Now please go away and never come back.

Every time they're visiting the Heiliger Kaiser Church (the name cracks me up, and the translation is Holy King Church, which is wrong... Kaiser means emperor, not king, and that word comes from the classical latin pronunciation of Caesar, but never mind) in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS it's playing a 90ies JRPG jingle that's so painfully generic that I have to laugh. There's an absolute derth of material on YouTube, so no easily linking, but that theme sounds an awful lot like entering random village #3 in Secret of Mana.

Well, great, now I can't unsee that. At least Nanoha doesn't look as bad as Rebuild (yet, those newer animes, ugh). She's also not nearly as much fun, but there was something about the animation, the voice acting and the mannerisms that reminded me of Mimette. To be honest, I don't either. The story's been moving somewhat slowly, which isn't bad, but the pacing doesn't always work, like this latest episode I watched stumbled a bit by piling up antagonists that didn't appear before. Well, actually I think that was the first time the Doctor's actual group appeared, because the other group they've been dealing with are only hired help at best.